Care and Feeding of Your Creators (5 Steps All Fans Should Take)

So, you've been out wilding on the Internet, or maybe you were in real space at a convention, and you found someone who makes things you like. You want this person to be able to keep doing what they're doing, but you've never had a pet creator before. How do you take care of them? How do you ensure they've got enough enrichment in their enclosures to keep their creative juices flowing properly? What do creators even eat?

Don't worry. Just take a deep breath. I'm going to give you the inside scoop on just what your creator needs, and how you can make sure that they continue to do that thing you love for years to come!

Stimulants may be necessary, but we'll get there when we get there...

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

The 5 Steps To Taking Care Of Your Creators

In the old days, artists had patrons who would give them money, food, a place to live, and so one. Whether it was rich nobles who wanted to show off by having a pet artist, or the church who needed their skills to create works of art to ensure the proper feeling of reverence in the populace, these old style patrons handled the day-to-day expenses of the creators so they could focus on using their skills to make art.

The world has changed since then. These days it's possible for anyone to support the work of an artist they like, though, and we definitely need all the help we can get.

Just follow these 5 Steps, and your artist will be perking up in no time!

Method #1: Direct Patronage

Seriously, every little bit helps.

You may not be a member of the Medicis, but you can still help creators directly. Whether you want to become a Patreon patron and give them a specific amount every month, or just toss them a tip using a platform like Ko-Fi when you have a little bit to spare, these tips can add up when there's a lot of people participating. Never underestimate the power of a lot of people doing something small in large numbers... that is going to become a running theme throughout this post, for folks who are wondering.

And if you want to give me a hand up, consider become one of my Patreon patrons, or giving me a tip on my Ko-Fi.

#2: Buy Their Merch

Since a lot of folks haven't checked out this novel yet...

Did you know that a band makes way more money from the purchase of a tee shirt or a CD than buying a ticket to their concert does, more often than not? In fact, most of the money made from concerts (even those that sell out) often go to pay for the expenses of the show. Even some tours that seem really successful from the outside can barely break even... or in some case leave the performers in debt if they don't sell enough merch to actually make a profit.

So if you have a creator you like, take a look at their merch. Authors have novels, RPG rule books, and so on, which makes them easy to support in this regard. But even if you have a YouTuber, a painter, or any other kind of creator, ask what kind of merch they put out. Do they have stickers? Tee shirts? Shaker cups? Prints of their artwork? Or do they have a sponsorship deal with a product or service that you would actually use (since every purchase through the creator's link puts money in their pockets)?

For those interested in novels and short stories, check out my Amazon author page. If you're more of an RPG players, I've got nearly 200 titles on Drive Thru RPG. And if you're a fan of energy drinks that I can attest absolutely get the job done, consider clicking right here to check out Dubby!

Method #3: Consume Their Content

If a creator you follow makes content that is free for you to consume (they have a YouTube channel, a podcast, or they publish articles on a website or a blog), then make sure you're actually watching, reading, and listening to the things they make! In some cases that free content does have a method of getting the creator paid, such as how YouTube gives a portion of ad revenue to the person who runs a channel once they've met the website's qualifications. Your reads, views, etc. will only be a tiny fraction of what they'd need to make a living, but it costs you nothing, and increases the creator's numbers, which matters a lot.

Why does it matter? Because the algorithm, which can decide our success or failure, pays attention to numbers. Videos, articles, podcast episodes, etc., that get a lot of interaction (which is both watches/views/listens, but also shares, upvotes, reviews, etc.) are the things the algorithm chooses to signal boost because it believes they're more popular. So the more you can add to a creator's numbers, the better they look overall. As such you should listen, but also like, comment, subscribe, and all those other things that can help them push the rock up the hill a little further.

For those who'd like to help me in this regard, I help out with the Azukail Games YouTube channel, but I also have an archive of 329 articles and growing on Vocal.media (and every 3 articles read basically puts a penny in my earnings cup... so reading even 1 article a day would make a big difference if enough people did it).

Method #4: Actively Follow Them on Social Media

On it, chief!

Social media is the lifeblood of how a lot of us stay in touch, as well as how we find new things. The problem is that thanks to platform decay, only those with the loudest followings and the largest numbers actually seem to get anywhere... everyone else is just drowned out by the sea of noise, ads, and bots that exists on these platforms.

Again, if you want the algorithm to notice the creators you like (and possibly pay them, as apparently that's a thing that can happen if your following is big enough), do your part to increase their numbers!

That means you should absolutely follow/subscribe to the creators you like on all the platforms they're active on, but that's just the start. Interact with their posts by liking, commenting, and sharing them. Turn on notifications if that's an option so you don't miss posts. Make sure you're plugged-in so that you see the things they put up, and if possible try to persuade your friends to do the same! Pushing someone's signal up takes literally tens of thousands of people, but it can be done if folks show up and keep the energy going. Like the other stuff above, this isn't a one-and-done... make this a part of your regular routine. It will only take a few minutes a day, if that, and it does make an impact.

All of my social media links are at the end of this blog for folks who are interested... Hope to see you there!

Method #5: Make Sure You Tell Them How Much You Like Their Work

Being told that people like your work, that people are excited for a thing you made, is like a straight shot in the arm for a lot of creators out there. We put hours of time, energy, editing, an often collaborating to make our creations into things that can be experienced... and when we do all that, and no one ever reads, watches, listens, etc., it can feel like it was for nothing.

I wrote Waking Dogs Part 3: Warhounds a few months ago, and the audio drama above by the YouTube channel A Vox in The Void gave me chills to listen to. Even more than hearing someone else's interpretation of my work, though, were the comments folks left behind!

I'll be honest, I wrote the first story abotu Crixus and his bloody adventures in the grimdark galaxy because I was hoping folks would then turn around and check out my novel Old Soldiers... but this little fanfiction series has taken on a life of its own. And seeing just how excited folks were not just to have a new installment of the series, but how stoked they were to know I had plans to keep it going... that's a great feeling to have, and it's one that we don't get as often as you might think.

So if you love a creator's work, tell them. Because a lot of the time we might be wondering if anyone actually cares, and if there's anyone actually rooting for us to keep going. Sometimes a little cheering from the sidelines really does help us keep putting one foot in front of the other just a little bit longer.

Final Thoughts

I want to make it clear to folks that this advice is universal. Any creator you're following, whether they're an author or a graphic artists, a YouTuber, a podcaster, a voice actor, or an essayist, they need you to help them keep their career alive. You are literally the life blood of art. PBS wasn't screwing around when they said we can only do what we do because of viewers like you... without your support, a lot of us will have to stop making art... so support the people whose work you want to see flourish!

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

Creators Need Your Help (Even When It Looks Like They Don't)

I want to take a moment to talk about the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios. This channel, by all measures, is a pretty big success on the platform. It's been around for a decade and a half, most of its videos have view counts in the hundreds of thousands, it has half a million subscribers, and a relatively robust Patreon and Ko-Fi audience. It's also the channel where the very popular series of video essays titled The Alt-Right Playbook is posted, and it broke down a lot of rhetorical devices and arguments used by those on the right side of the political spectrum.

To all appearances, the channel and its host should be doing well. However, as a recent video he put up states in the title, Being A YouTuber Bankrupted Me.

And this is something I wanted to talk about today. Not just to try and push a little support toward a creator and video essayist whose work I enjoy and admire (though seriously, help out if you can even if that's just subscribing to his channel and watching some videos in his archive), but to try to drive home something to everyone out there.

None of us are doing well. Even if it looks like we are, we are literally 1-2 months away from everything crashing down without meaningful support from people like you.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!

We Can Never Have Too Much Support

There is a common misconception among the general public that creators are either wealthy, or we're making ends meet without too much difficulty. And part of this is likely because when you think of the richest people out there, chances are artists of one stripe or another come to mind first. Whether it's YouTube creators like Mr. Beast, authors like Stephen King, movie stars, pop sensations, and so on, the assumption is that if a few of us are rich beyond an average person's wildest dreams, then surely the rest of us are doing all right? In addition to that there are fictional portrayals of creators such as on the TV show Castle where the successful novelist has a level of wealth that can solve an episode's entire plot, or even on shows like Two and a Half Men where a washed up songwriter wrote a single jingle years ago whose royalties can pay for an obscenely indulgent lifestyle.

However, I've met a lot of authors in my life. I've also met my share of podcasters, YouTubers, RPG designers, as well as a handful of marginally well-known singers and musicians... and do you know what all of them had in common? No matter how much money you thought they were making, I could guarantee that you weren't even remotely in the ballpark. Nearly all of us are broke. Period.

Seriously... it's depressing how broke we are.

And why are we so broke? Well, there's the fact that a lot of our rates for stories haven't actually gone up since the early 1900s for a lot of publications. There's the fact that platform decay across social media has made it nearly impossible for us to reach an audience like we could even a decade or so ago. There's the fact that if someone buys a $15 book that only $1-$3 of that makes it into our pockets, so we have to move tens of thousands of books a year just to keep our heads above water. There's the fact that Covid killed a lot of conventions (and seriously harmed those that survived), where a lot of us could make sales in-person. There's the fact that creators are given bare crumbs by platforms like YouTube, Spotify, etc., so that we need to rack up literal millions of views/listens in order to get even a $100 check at the end of the month...

But that's mostly the modern problems we're dealing with as creators. The truth is that being a professional creative has basically never paid well except for a handful of us that get plucked up by the zeitgeist, who make smart business decisions, or who are supremely lucky.

I cannot count the number of times I've met someone who I consider a more successful author, game creator, etc., and they always ask me the question, "So what do you do?" not because they're being dismissive of my work, but because it never occurs to them that this is my full-time job... because even at their level, their creative work isn't enough to cover their needs. Most other creators I know, even the really successful ones, typically have a retirement (quite common among the hard sci-fi crowd who had a military career before they started writing), they have a well-paying day job (I can think of one union welder and one regional sales manager I've shared con space with over the years), their spouse is actually the house breadwinner (which you wouldn't think was the case for someone who designed one of the major games in the World of Darkness, and who has a bestselling fantasy series under his belt), or in some cases they have an inheritance or trust fund that just lets them write without worrying about keeping the bills paid.

If you remove all of those folks from the general pool of creators out there, and only count those of us who are doing this full-time to support ourselves, there aren't a lot of us out there. And a majority of us (myself included) live in poverty, dependent on the whims and support of our readers to help us keep the lights on and the words coming.

And I don't mean that as hyperbole. I mean real-life, qualifies for Medicaid, uses food pantries, barely-makes-enough-to-pay-taxes poverty.

To Be Clear, "Support" Comes in Many Forms

When most people hear the word support they immediately close themselves off because it's become synonymous with money. However, while beoming a Patreon patron or throwing a tip into my digital jar (via my Patreon page or my Ko-Fi respectively) is always nice, I completely get that's not something a lot of folks can do. However, as I've pointed out several times in this blog, as well as in other places, support comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. In addition to giving creators money directly, or buying our books and other merch, support also looks like:

- Following our social media pages (bigger subscriber counts makes the algorithm friendly)

- Interacting with our posts (comments, upvotes, shares, etc. all make a difference)

- Consuming our content (watching videos, reading articles, etc., as that can get us paid)

- Sharing things we make to reach a wider audience (we literally can't do this on our own)

Even if you cannot personally pay a creator's bills by handing us money, you can do your part to boost our signal, and get our view counts up... the hard part is that we need a lot of people all working toward the same goal. And like I said a while back in episode 16 of Tabletop Mercenary, Audience Support is a Reverse Iceberg, we're lucky if 10% of our audience actually participates at all. And of that 10%, less than 10% of that number actively supports us by upvoting posts, sharing on social media, watching/reading any time something new comes out, talking us up to their friends, etc.

I want to end this off on a note of real talk for anyone who got this far. This isn't just unique to me, as a creator. This is a situation all of us are facing. We aren't just out here shaking a tip jar because we want a little extra money from you... we are literally funded by what you choose to do or not do as members of our audience.

So if there are creators out there that you like (whether it's me, or someone else), please, actively support them in any way you can. If you have money, support their crowdfunding endeavors, or buy some of their merch to show there are people out there who want more of it (hell, a single tee shirt gives them more revenue than an entire month of streaming a podcast on your mobile device). Leave ratings and reviews to help them get noticed more, follow their socials, tell your friends and family... and if you really want to make a creator's day, leave them some nice comments.

Seriously, we get so much hate on a daily basis. Sometimes it really helps us stop the candle from going out for someone to just tell us they really liked a story we wrote, and they can't wait for the next installment.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.

The Point of Writing is Doing The Work (Giving The Middle Finger To A.I.)

I remember several years ago I was sitting in a stylist's chair getting my hair trimmed. As folks in this profession so often do, she started making small talk with me. When she found out I was a professional writer, though, it was like I'd opened a floodgate. Apparently she'd had this idea rolling around in her head for years that she thought would make a really good book. I can't remember most of it now, but it somehow involved a cartel drug dealer who got romantically entangled with his stylist, and the two of them had to go on the run from both gangsters and the ATF, trying to find some way to cut a deal so they could live happily ever after.

Could I have made that into a decent action romantic comedy? Sure... but what stuck with me even more than the idea was the serious tone in her voice when she looked in the mirror and said, "If you want to go in on this with me, we can split the take 50/50."

And this, I think, is what really gets to the heart of why so many people have fallen down the generative A.I. rabbit hole.

Chuck really puts it into simple words.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

The Writing Is The Point

Before we get lost in the weeds, I want to make a clear distinction. "Generative A.I." refers to software programs that are trained off of data that are fed into them until they can recognize patterns, and produce something similar to what they've seen before. They also allow users to enter prompts, such as telling it to paint a portrait of a barbarian king holding an ax in the style of Frank Frazetta. Or telling it to write a short story about a secret, cannibal family in the style of H.P. Lovecraft. The main problem with these softwares is that they're thieves; the data they are fed is based on stolen work, taken from people who did not consent for their work to be used in training the software, so everything it creates is fruit from the poisoned tree. It doesn't matter how amazing the thing it made it, it's all tainted by that initial plagiarism.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that someone produced an "ethical" generative A.I. program for writers. Let's say that it was trained only on work that was given freely by writers, or that it used only works in the public domain. So you could just push a button and get a private detective story in the style of Agatha Christie, or perhaps a war story in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle (we'll assume his estate went along with this in the scenario I'm painting). You could do that.

But what's the point?

As Mr. Wendig said in the picture in the introduction, and as I said a while ago on my show Tabletop Mercenary over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, ideas are barely worth a weak piss in a stiff breeze. The idea isn't what's worth something... it's the execution of that idea that is worth something. It's the skill it takes to realize that idea, and to turn it into something that actually exists.

Consider any invention throughout history. From the telephone, to the automobile, to the locomotive, the ideas of those things aren't valuable. The execution of those things is. Saying, "It would be jolly convenient to be able to have a conversation with my friend on the other coast whenever I wished!" is not an inherently valuable thing. That idea is, on its own, worthless. The people who built the telegraph lines, and then the telephone lines, and the machinery that allowed voices to travel instantaneously over long distances are the ones that created something of value.

This is where the disconnect happens with so many people. Because we have this stereotype of The Visionary (TM) whose ideas are so powerful they can change the world. But as we've seen with Thomas Edison (who was only responsible for a fraction of the things he claimed credit for) and Elon Musk (who is responsible for nothing he's claimed credit for), vision is worthless. Vision is nothing without an engine to drive it, and to create actual momentum to make it into a reality... and if you aren't the one creating that momentum, then you weren't a meaningful part of the process.

Consider, for example, works of art that the church commissioned from the artist Michaelangelo. Sure, the church might have told him what they wanted the art to be (which figures from the bible it should feature, the general vibe the piece should give off, and so on), but when we study those art pieces, is the particular clergyman mentioned as anything other than a patron or sponsor? No, because the person who made the art is what matters. They are the one who turned vision into reality, not the patron who fed them the prompts. As such, they're the ones who deserve the credit.

If you want to be an artist, you have to make art. If you want to be a writer, you have to write. If you turned to a writer, gave them the basic pitch of a book idea, and then they wrote the book, you are not an author. The same is true if you type a bunch of prompts into an engine, and then see what it spits out.

What I Am (And Am Not) Saying

That was a lot to take in, so I want to reiterate some points for folks who made it this far.

First of all, yes, there are tools you can use as a writer that involve you just pushing a button. From character name generators to automatic writing prompts, we have had access to generative tools for decades now. Hell, when I was in high school and just starting my journey as a writer, there was a website that held weekly contest for short stories written using the automated short story prompt generator.

However, before claiming something is a tool, you need to ask yourself several questions:

- Does it use stolen material to create what you are using?

- How much of the finished project does it create for you?

If something just creates a prompt, or gives you a character name, or even throws out a theme or plot synopsis for you, and it wasn't made using stolen text, that is a tool you can use as a writer. If you just feed in some prompts, and the thing in question writes a short story or a book for you, that is not a tool; that is an artificially-written story. You didn't make that happen any more than the clergyman who told the Renaissance artists what characters to sculpt or what scenes to paint is the artist of those works.

The whole point of writing is that we're telling a story. The point of reading is because we want to be told a story. Yes, writing is hard. Yes there will be stumbling blocks along the way, and things that give you trouble, and lessons you have to learn. But the work is not some obstacle to be overcome by outsourcing it to a machine. The work is the point.

Put another way, if you had a robot go to the gym for you, and do an entire fitness routine, it wouldn't make you any faster, stronger, or better. You're just wasting time and electricity avoiding the work you need to do to actually get good.

Support The Literary Mercenary

If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!

- My Facebook

- My Blue Sky

- My LinkTree

- My Weekly Newsletter

- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)

- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)

And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!

Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!

Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!

That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list. 

If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!

A.I. Started With Artists, But It's Coming For Authors

If you've been on social media any time in the past year, you're no doubt aware of the serious situation involving so-called A.I. art generation programs (which will, henceforth, be referred to as plagiarism software). In short, unscrupulous folks have been stealing art, and feeding it into these programs to train them. The computers (who have no real morality) amalgamate all of this art, and then spit out different combinations according to the prompts they're given. Despite the results, and all of the people who herald this as the birth of true artificial intelligence, these are just programs that are sorting and sifting what they've been told, trying to create some chimera out of their data bases that will pass muster.

And while this may have started with art, authors need to get into the trench right alongside illustrators and actors on this one. Because people are already trying to steal our work, and feed it to these bots in an attempt to instantly produce books they can then turn around and sell, regardless of the harm said books may do to authors, or even to those who rely on a text for more than mere entertainment.

Because this is not a fight we want to let corporations win. And they are trying like hell!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!

What The Hell is Going On!?

This whole crisis is precipitated by a single fact; creators are seen as an obstacle to getting a product by those in charge. It's why studios don't want to pay actors and scriptwriters, it's why companies attempt to pay designers in exposure, it's why YouTube demands you provide them thousands of hours of free content before they'll share ad revenue with you, and it's why a lot of unscrupulous publishers will attempt to cut royalties to the bone all while encouraging writers to keep putting words on the page. Despite the fact that creators are the ones doing all of the work, the idea is always to ask how a company can pay them even less without losing out on the amount of creative work it has to sell to the public.

From that perspective, this software is the answer to their prayers. It allows them to take all the work that exists (if they're willing to completely ignore copyright law, morality, etc.), feed it into a big hopper, push a button, and have the machine spit out a fully complete work on the other side. Best of all, they can then turn around and start selling that machine-created product without paying a single author, or waiting for a living, breathing human being to finish the job.

And it's not just the big wigs who are acting like this is the death knell of authors as a species. Because while tech bros are strutting around like the fox that got the chicken, those who take an inordinate amount of pleasure at kicking down at creatives while simultaneously building their identities around fandoms and properties, have been braying that now we'll all have to, "Go get real jobs."

Unfortunately, the paint is already peeling off this rusting dream of theirs, and the wheels are making a decidedly awful sound as they get ready to come off.

I predict this going up in a fireball any day now.

The reason is, quite simply, plagiarism software isn't intelligence (artificial or otherwise). It is, in fact, rather stupid. All it can do is regurgitate what's been fed to it, and rearrange that information, attempting to predict what order would make it work best. While it might be able to mimic the style of a particular author, it doesn't have the ability to truly plot a novel, make realistic sounding dialogue, or create anything truly new. These programs are great at doing technical tasks (predicting shopping lists, figuring out based on past data whether a given property warrants a remake, etc.), but they aren't some kind of magic button that produces solid-gold novels that will fly off the shelves (despite some people trying this exact tactic, according to CNN).

This is bad enough when it comes to fiction, but as college students have found out, these programs aren't capable of thinking; they just spit out what they think you want to hear. As such, they'll confidently mess up facts, but write it in a way that seems legitimate. This is what makes things like foraging guides produced by chatbots so dangerous... because sure, a company didn't pay an author to write that guide. They're also trusting in an extremely unreliable collection of 1s and 0s to tell people which mushrooms are safe to eat, and which ones will kill them.

A Note on The Troglodytes

Generally speaking, you're supposed to be even-handed with people. You're supposed to try to see things from their perspective, and to try to reach a middle ground. This is particularly true when you are an author, and your brand is just as much about who you are and how you act as it is about the work you create. However, there are a lot of people out there who aren't actually interested in this conversation, nor do they care about how authors, artists, and others are routinely exploited. They just show up in the comments section to jeer, sling mud, and to howl at you to stop whining and pull yourself up by your bootstraps instead of trying to get paid for doing a hobby.

I will not mince words here. These people are troglodytes, and though they've certainly come out of the woodwork thanks to plagiarism software taking center stage, they've always been here. And, in a practical sense, their opinions have always been irrelevant to creators for one, simple reason.

They have never supported us. They have never cared about us. And no matter what you offer them, or how cordial you are, they are no different than the corporate overlords when it comes to exploitation; they just don't bother putting a pleasant face on it.

I'll give you an example that I feel is relevant, here.

As my regular readers know, I write a lot of TTRPG supplements to pay my bills. Whether it's things like my recent release 100 Sci Fi Bands, filled with musicians to set the scene in your cantina, 100 Superstitions For a Fantasy Setting to help you add a little extra detail to your next DND game, or even something like the popular 100 Merchants to Encounter so you aren't scrambling to make up characters at the drop of a hat, this is where the bulk of my earnings comes from.

And holy shit do troglodytes love to accuse me of being a bot!

It happens at least a couple of times a month, but it has shifted and changed over the past year. At first they accused me of building a bot to promote my work, which I'm not tech-savvy enough to do. As these programs have gained popularity, though, they instead claim that I'm just generating lists using this software and tossing them out there, hoping people are stupid enough to buy them. However, when I point out that a lot of my supplements pre-date the existence of these programs, their tune changes, saying that if they wanted a list like this for their game that they would just download a program and hit the button because it's free.

Could you mimic some of my supplements with a chat bot? Probably. As long as it didn't have to keep certain sets of world rules in mind, build balanced magic items, create unique plot hooks, or even maintain proper grammar, I'd say a bot could make a knockoff of the kind of work I do. And for some people, that would be good enough. They'd rather get bot slop for free, than pay a creator even a few dollars.

Because, and I feel this must be stressed, they do not care. If they couldn't get this resource via a plagiarism chat bot, they would attempt to pirate your content so you didn't get paid, or they would start some kind of forum posting war to try and get the community to do as much work on their behalf as possible. These are the same people who will sneer that they're not going to buy your novel because there's so much content available online for free that they don't need you on their to-read pile, or who will loudly demand that you provide free work for them to somehow prove you're a "real" creator.

There is nothing you can do to convince troglodytes to re-examine their biases, and to empathize with creators. What we can do, though, is try to find people who may not understand the issue, and explain to them what's happening. Showing them how a given issue affects all of us, and how the decisions they make can have repercussions, is possible. Winning hearts and minds on this issue is important, since too many folks just don't get a glimpse behind the scenes when it comes to the life of creative professionals.

Have meaningful, useful conversations with you can, but don't bother with the troglodytes. Stay vigilant, stay loud, and don't give up!

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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